Mr. Fixit Goes Open Source With DIY Repair Site

Manufacturers want you to recycle old gear when you upgrade, but Kyle Wiens would prefer that you keep your old gadgets and fix them yourself.

Wiens, CEO of repair company iFixit, has remade his gadget-repair website into a collaborative wiki with the goal of crowdsourcing repair manuals for every type of device imaginable. He calls the movement “Repair 2.0.”

“I don’t think we can continue manufacturing new things, consuming them and throwing them away at the rate that we do,” Wiens told Wired.com. “What we’re doing is we’re allowing people to join together and help each other save money, help the environment and care for those things.”

Previously, iFixit was a repair site that posted step-by-step disassembly instructions for gadgets posted by iFixit staff. The company makes money by selling parts (like replacement iPhone screens) that intrepid fixers can use in their repair projects. Later, iFixit implemented a gallery tool for anybody to post an illustrative teardown manual for their gadgets (which Gadget Lab helped introduce with a Sony teardown contest).

Now, the site has repurposed itself into a full-blown wiki for repair manuals, where contributors can collaborate on repair instructions in real time. For each product, iFixit contributors can create individual manuals with instructions for specific repairs (e.g., a manual for fixing the Wi-Fi module in a MacBook, or a manual for replacing a battery in a Samsung cellphone). All the manuals on iFixit will be free and noncopyrighted.

The DIY-repair concept is derived from a longstanding culture of gadget teardowns. Typically, when manufacturers ship products, they don’t publicly disclose full details about their internal parts. Some hardware geeks disassemble electronics to learn more about their components and the evolution of industrial design. IFixit has been an extremely popular site hosting teardowns immediately after a major gadget is released.

Wiens said the next step was to make teardowns beneficial for the environment and consumer culture by repurposing them into easily digestible repair guides. He added that fixing gadgets only increases their value.

“To some extent things have lost their soul, and I think repairing things yourself re-injects some soul and connects you to the stuff that you own,” Wiens said.